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SEOUL (REUTERS) – South Korea recorded its second-highest daily number of coronavirus cases on Saturday (Dec. 26) as outbreaks in a prison, nursing homes and churches continued to grow, prompting authorities to ask for a stop at the end of the year. meetings.
The Korea Disease Prevention and Control Agency (KDCA) said there were 1,132 new cases of coronavirus on Friday (December 25), not far from the record of 1,241 recorded a day earlier.
“The virus is spreading whenever and wherever it wants,” Health Minister Kwon Deok-cheol said at a meeting within the agency, adding that people were also getting infected in small gatherings with friends and acquaintances.
“Now that we are at the crossroads of the third wave, how we stop the spread depends on how we spend this end of the year and the New Year period.” The government plans to hold a meeting on Sunday to discuss whether it will tighten the distancing rules to the strictest level for the Seoul metropolitan area.
That would close another 1.2 million stores and allow only essential workers to enter offices. The curbs currently in place have closed nightclubs, karaoke bars and other nightly entertainment venues, as well as a ban on eating on site after 9pm.
Before the Christmas and New Year holidays, the government also banned gatherings of more than four people in the Seoul metropolitan area and closed ski resorts and other tourist spots.
South Korea had largely managed to control the first major outbreaks with aggressive testing and contact tracing. But critics have blamed the authorities for being overconfident and not adequately preparing for the third and biggest wave.
The current largest group is in a prison in eastern Seoul, where 514 inmates and workers have been infected, prompting health authorities to test everyone there. The virus is likely to spread easily as the prison consists of five high-rise buildings and suffers from overcapacity, a health official said.
South Korea’s total infections now stand at 54,770, with 773 deaths, the KDCA data showed.
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